As the pupils trooped obediently to school, Mary noted that they carried no flowers to their dear teacher, but that Ben, the oldest pupil, twenty-one years old, six feet four inches in height and deeply saturnine in manner, carried a six-shooter in his cartridge-belt.  The teacher felt that she was the last to deny a pupil any reasonable palliative of the tedium of class-hours—­the nearness of her own school-days inclined her to leniency in this particular—­but she was hardly prepared to condone a six-shooter, and confided her fears to Mrs. Yellett, who received them with the indulgent tolerance a strong-minded woman might extend to the feminine flutter aroused by a mouse.  She explained that Ben did not shoot for “glory,” but to defend the herd from the casual calls of mountain-lions, bears, and coyotes.  Jack and Ned, who were very nearly as tall as their older brother, carried similar weapons.  Mary prayed that a fraternal spirit might dwell among her pupils.

The Misses Yellett were hardly less terrifying than their brothers.  They had their father’s fierce, hawklike profile, softened by youth, and the appalling height and robustness due to the freedom and fresh air of a nomadic existence.  Their costumes might, Mary thought, have been fashioned out of gunny-sacks by the simple expedient of cutting holes for the head and arms.  The description of the dress worn by the charcoal-burner’s daughter in any mediaeval novel of modern construction would approximate fairly well the school toilets of these young lady pupils.  The boys wore overalls and flannel shirts, which, in contrast to the sketchy effects of their sisters’ costumes, seemed almost modish.  Mrs. Yellett then left the “class-room,” saying she must take Ben’s place with the sheep.

The Brobdingnags, huge of stature, sinister of aspect, deeply distrustful of the rites in which they were about to participate, closed in about their teacher.  From the pigeon-holes of memory Mary drew forth the academic smile with which a certain teacher of hers had invariably opened school.  The pupils greeted the academic smile with obvious suspicion.  No one smiled in camp.  When anything according with their conception of the humorous happened, they laughed uproariously.  Thus, early in the morning, on his way to breakfast, Ned had stumbled over an ax and severely cut his head.  Every one but Ned saw the point of this joke immediately, and hearty guffaws testified to their appreciation.

Miss Carmichael took her place behind the upturned tub.

“Will you please be seated?” she said.

The class complied with the instantaneous precision of automata newly greased and in excellent working order.  Their abrupt obedience was disconcerting.  Some one must have been drilling them, thought their anxious teacher, in the art of simultaneous squatting.  The temper of the class respecting scholastic deportment leaned towards rigidity bordering on self-torture.